It’s a serious situation to ask someone with a no-trade clause to waive it
The NHL Network: Elliotte Friedman, when asked how boring the no-trade clauses are and how difficult they are to navigate.
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Mike Rupp: “Yeah, so Elliotte, I want to follow up quickly here, because I just found out, for the audience out there, how, in your experience, maybe you don’t talk about this situation, but if you don’t have the immobility stages, how difficult and fragile are those situations?
Because as much as the players want, if the team comes to me and says, ‘Would you like it, you will raise your non-movement clause,’ and it doesn’t go down. Like, how are you doing? It’s not that simple. I think a lot of fans want to treat it like a video game and just say, ‘Hey, are you willing to move? Are you willing to relocate? Are you willing to relocate? That’s not the case.
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Friedman: “No, not really.
You know what I mean by this. First of all, when things go well, Michael, you probably never, that almost never happens. If things are going well for the player or the team, this is never a problem. I think it’s usually a problem when things don’t go well or a great player comes along.
Now, Kelly Hrudy, my colleague, firmly believes that if a player does not have a trade clause, no one should even be allowed to approach him. Now, I don’t think that’s really possible, but I understand how Kelly feels.
I think in most cases, a lot of GMs have told me what will happen is they’ll get a call from somebody, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, that player has a no-trade clause. I won’t tell them anymore unless you give me a reason. You have to give me a deal I can’t refuse to even get close to someone.’
Me, we talked today, Michael, and you told me you were going to ask this, so I did a little research. And I’m one GM, he said, you can’t use a player, but I’ll tell you the situation from a few years ago. There was a good player in another team that I wanted. And I talked to him, I talked to the team about him, and they said they wanted this guy who was on my team who was on unemployment.
And he said, what I did was call and trust the agent, and I said, there is a chance for this, I am something, I will ask you. I have to trust you. It won’t get past the two of us. And the agent said, ‘You have my word.’ And he said, ‘If I can find this player, they want your boy, can he stop going to that situation?’ And the agent said, ‘I won’t even ask the player, because I know the answer will be no.’
And so I think. And it didn’t go anywhere. He said he never went to the player, and the agent never went to the player. It never got to the player.
So I think a lot of times here, the relationship between the manager and the agent can be very important. Because as you know, especially you and Michael, that when a player finds out and is questioned and upset, you know, you have to be really thin-skinned to say, ‘You know what? That will go after me. And that won’t bother me.’ because some guys will take that personally. It’s not the same at all.
And the worst, as you know, guys, when it comes out. As the player was asked. Like, you know, earlier this year, I reported that Andrei Svechnikov had said, when he played in the fourth row, that he, or sorry Evgeni Svechnikov (Andrei was the right Svechnikov). He was playing in the fourth row, he would agree to withdraw no, sorry, even compromise, he is willing to accept the job.
It came out, and he got angry about it. And you know, I think whenever that comes out, it’s really soft, Michael. So I think a lot depends on the relationship between the club and the player and the club and the agent.
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Manager: “I also think that the important part is the relationship between the player and the agent as well, right? Because the agent may think that he is speaking for his client, but sometimes he may not know what the answer is. So it’s a serious situation, you’re right. But that’s just my two cents.
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